Author: Will Aitken
Profile: Will Aitken is an American-Canadian novelist, film critic and journalist. Though he is based in Montreal, Quebec, he is from Terre Haute, Indiana. In 1972 he moved to Montreal to complete his education at McGill University. In 1973 he was the co-founder of Librairie L’Androgyne, the first LGBT bookstore in the city of Montreal. A number of media outlets including The Paris Review, the CBC, Maclean’s, BBC, The Globe and Mail and NPR have features his film criticism and arts journalism.
He taught film studies at Dawson College previously in Montreal. Terre Haute is his debut novel in 1989. A number of media outlets including, National Public Radio, The Paris Review, the CBC, National Post, Maclean’s, Christopher Street, BBC, The Globe and Mail and NPR have featured his film criticism and arts journalism.
Writing style:
Will Aitken creates a rich body of literature sharply depicting flawed but distinctive characters. The author states that the new production of Sophocles’s Antigone has powerfully affected him. The book combines interwoven, personal confessional interviews, with the layperson’s and principal’s critical take on literary and philosophical responses to the book that deepens and extends engagement which appears contemporary quite uncannily but is a piece of ancient work.
Published Texts:
Movies
Rowing Through
Novels
1989 – Terre Haute (Novel)
1993 – A Visit Home (Novel)
2000 – Riaria (Novel)
Non-fiction
2011 – Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic (non-fiction book – a critical analysis of Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film, ‘Death in Venice’, as part of Arsenal Pulp Press’s Queer Film Classics series.
2018 – Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove and the Art of Resistance
Anthologies
2008 – Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism
Awards and Acknowledgements:
2018 – Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove and the Art of Resistance was shortlisted finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction in 2018